'Mindset' is key for Notre Dame football in rare late-night kickoff
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SOUTH BEND — Not only is this Thanksgiving week and the regular-season finale for Notre Dame football, but Saturday night’s kickoff time is a biorhythm-wrecking doozy at Stanford Stadium.
Not since 1991 have the Irish started a game later than 10:30 p.m. ET, which is the airtime for this one against the 4-7 Cardinal. Back in the heart of the Lou Holtz era, Notre Dame had 11 p.m. ET starts at both Stanford and Hawaii.
The Irish won 42-26 on Oct. 5 in Palo Alto, Calif., and then closed out the regular season with a 48-42 nailbiter in Honolulu on Nov. 30.
“We’ll make sure that the mental approach to this 7:30 Pacific kickoff time is that it’s Notre Dame time,” Irish coach Marcus Freeman said Monday. “That’s the first thing is the mindset we have to have. There’s also small adjustments that we’ll do probably toward the end of the week in terms of making sure that physically our guys are ready at 7:30 when we’re out there.”
Through 11 games, the Irish have gone 2-0 in noon ET kickoffs, rolling by a combined 93-28 at Arkansas and Pittsburgh; 2-2 in 7:30 p.m. ET starts, including losses to Miami and Texas A&M to start the year; and 5-0 in 3:30 p.m. ET starts, mostly recently blasting Syracuse 70-7 on Senior Day over the weekend.
Notre Dame has won five of the past six meetings with Stanford, now in the ACC. That includes three straight wins at Stanford by a combined 146-61 following a string of five straight road defeats in the Legends Trophy series.
Even amid this run of Irish success, Freeman noted the past three meetings between the teams have ended with Notre Dame tied or trailing after the first quarter. Just because Syracuse trailed 42-0 just four seconds into the second period doesn’t mean the Cardinal will roll over this week.
“We have a long flight out there; we know that,” Freeman said. “Saturday is going to be a little bit different to the body in terms of wakeup time. There are little things that we do as a sports performance staff to make sure we can help them be ready at 7:30 (PT). They have to be ready to go, but to me the No. 1 thing is the mental approach to it.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame football must prep for rare late-night start at Stanford
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